So much average

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Fresh and Exciting

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film was a fundamentally good idea. It, however, failed to capture the sheer horror of the Holocaust. Perhaps because its target audience is young persons, we are spared much of the pure violence of men, women and children being executed at the very villages they were being grabbed up from, half of them not even made it to the trains, the site of the piles of gold teeth, glasses, clothing, shoes, at the vast numbers in the camps, at the horror of a sheer gray gown torn and tattered to wear, being forced to strip (men and women) and be laughed at and abused by the butt of a gun, the men, women and children being ordered to spit on the Torah and tear it up or they'd be executed, and at the cramming of four times the maximum number of people into a cattle car, to be hours and days on the rails... the tiny little rat eaten bunks, the muddy floors and the 'no makeup' sickly look of the camp inmates, struggling just to survive, no time to reminisce or socialize. The rape, the murder ongoing, random castration or killings for fun by the SS. The psychological games played by the camp guards to torture the minds of the inmates.These are all omissions that represent only touching the surface of the heavy deep waters of the Holocaust 'experience' that this film does not quite address. It's about tears and terror, true, but it could have gone a lot deeper into the horror.I give it an 8 for effort and hope. And for the transition of a young girl opening the door for the Prophet Elijah, to awaken in Nazi Germany as if a reminder of how grateful she might be to God for having not been forced to endure the cruelty of the Eugenics Master Race ideologies of certain financial Americans and their Nazi Germany partners, among them Paul Josef Goebbels and Adolf Hitler. The REALITY of the Holocaust was far, far worse than this movie tells.

If you are able to accept this simply as a good, well acted movie, that's great. Unfortunately for me, I am not able to accept a departure from logic which spoiled this movie for me.Hannah is transported to 1941 Poland. We must assume she does not speak Polish, nor do her relatives speak English. Logically, it would pose a very difficult communication problem. As well, Hannah's humble acceptance of her new surroundings was hardly credible.Do your research. Concentration camps were never as small as the one depicted in this movie. Yes, prisoners were immediately assigned work details which in this case showed them hacking at the earth with pick axes in a muddied, water sodden area. For what purpose? Even within their warped philosophy, the SS had a purpose for everything.If you accept this movie as mythology where everything and nothing makes sense, you will likely enjoy it.

In light of Brittany Murphy's recent and tragic death, I decided to watch some of her movies I'd never seen and I found this one. "The Devil's Arithmetic" is the kind of movie that would be good for middle-schoolers who don't know much about the Holocaust. It doesn't dumb down the atrocities of a concentration camp, but it doesn't focus on depicting them in graphic detail, either. While there are several deaths, many happen off-screen, and those we do see are bloodless but blood-chilling.Fans of the book, which I read several times in middle school and early high school, will probably be disappointed; there's no Gitl, Rivka is Hannah's cousin, and some of the more suspenseful episodes of the novel are gone. However, if you've never read the book or can set the book aside, the film has an interesting story and does a good job of establishing a culture that will be unfamiliar to the viewer. Brittany Murphy is probably the best thing about this movie, and I don't say that out of pity; she plays Rivka as a sweet, kind, devoutly religious young woman who is the movie's emotional backbone. Kirsten Dunst is, well, Kirsten Dunst. She isn't bad in the part, but she doesn't make herself terribly memorable in it, either.Older audiences might think "The Devil's Arithmetic" sanitizes the Holocaust, but I'd have to disagree. It doesn't whitewash what happened - it just presents it in a way that won't cause twelve-year-olds to have vivid, gory nightmares. If the film has a large flaw, it's that Hannah never develops much of a personality beyond a bratty kid who has to adjust to life in the camp. That was the flaw of the book too, I think. At the same time, that blankness allows viewers Hannah's age to imagine themselves as Hannah and react and learn as she does.

I believe that this movie was well acted as well as well thought out. The Question really is;"How do I tell young people about this terrible tragedy without being to graphic and still holding their attention. I think that the movie answered that question admirably. Kirsten Dunst is a great actress that showed her ability to tell a serious story with a sense of lightheartedness. Let's not forgot Brittany Murphy. She is a highly underrated actress who just barely broke the surface of what she can do in this movie. overall, if your looking to tell/show a group of preteen/teens the story of the holocaust without the brutality then this is the ONLY movie to show them.